Posted on 17th Sep 2011 @ 8:10 PM

It's been a while since we have been able to post an update.  We have been busy building lures to keep up with our dealer network, and when we did have time to fish we have been fishing tournaments or prefishing for them with very little time to fish for fun.  Finally today at the end of a long summer I had a chance to go out and do some fun fishing in a local lake that previously held the NY state record largemouth.  What a great time, I caught limited fish but the bites were quality overall.

I've had a limited amount of time fishing on this lake so today was spent trying to learn and find areas to focus on.  In years past, I've fished this place out of my 12' mini bass boat, and my old canoe, but not since I've aquired my new ranger.  Today was a chance to run and gun, and try to learn this lake a bit better.  I think I did OK and found one key area that was fantastic and should produce fish almost year round.

When I first got on the water today at around 11am, the recent fall coldfront had brought water temps down to 67 degrees on the surface.  I knew the rapidly falling temps would likely make fish tenative to bite, but figured they wouldnt move too far and would require a finesse or presentation right in front of their nose.  Since I've had a limited amount of time on this lake, I knew I would have to hunt for spots that would present good summer conditions with deep water near by, and I managed to find one specific spot that matched this pattern.  After picking this spot apart, and then venturing off to find more spots like this (unsuccessfully), I came back to see if it had replenished.  Luckily it had.  I caught 2x fish each time I fished this specific area, and all the fish were on the same pattern.  Fish were holding close to the outside of the milfoil bed, very close to a dropoff that went from roughly 6' down to 15' very quickly.  All fish caught today were on our Stink Eye series jigs.  I also threw our Fat Belly spinnerbaits in a variety of colors on the outside weed edge from 8' where the weed edge started down to the bottom of the dropoff down to 15', but didn't get a sniff even if I counted it down on the deeper edge of the dropoff.  All of the bait fish I saw today were in the thickest parts of the milfoil, I literally saw none elsewhere.  Of course that's where the bass were as well.

Overall, I think the fish are going to hold typical summer patterns on this lake until we get some consistent colder temps that stabilize for a good week or so.  Once we get this, and I can get back out again, I imagine we will see some increased activity shallow.  Unfortunately since it was a solo mission today, some of the pics aren't the best.  My best two fish for the day were 4lbs, 7oz and 4lb 2oz.  Not too bad.......limited numbers but for the first day I've been able to really try and learn this lake I did OK I think.